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Bluestone, which now has 20 stores in the U.S., went cashless last October.
A big reason: Nearly 90 percent of customers [...] never paid in cash.
Another reason: The lines move faster when employees don't have to make change.
"We see a lot of guests that pay for a meal with a credit card, but will always leave a cash tip. And I think people like doing that. People like palming a bartender a $20 or palming their server a $10. Palming the bus boy a couple bucks," said Fileccia.
There are also people, he said, who want to keep their meal off the books — if they're having an affair, for example.
No, businesses are not required to accept cash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender
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When The Cash Register Doesn't Take Cash
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There will be big changes for you but you will be happy.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:30PM
> I have travelled through all three of those, for months on end, without a single cash-related problem.
Yes, because they are not "cash only", they will happily accept card payments. Very few places are "cash only", and usually because they want to keep money off the books for tax purposes.
However they will happily accept cash, and a lot of the locals transact in cash.
> Nope. The UK guarantees all current account deposits up to ... is it £80k per person? Partly because of the Iceland crisis, but also because they always did as they recognise that's where "money" actually exists nowadays (they just raised the limit). Zimbabwe had cash. It didn't do them much good.
Yes, but they don't say when they will pay up. If there is a massive bank fun, the government would have to print a lot of money, which is inflationary. Sure, you might eventually get your balance back, but that £80k might buy a loaf of bread. Not keeping your wealth in the bank is the better option.
Also, that is only in the case of a bank going under, not a bail in, in those situations you would get money taken out of your account. It is an EU law, which the UK has ratified (quietly), although not sure what will happen now with Brexit. They would be wise to get rid of that little rule IMO.
> The interest earned on anything is an absolute pittance, if you haven't noticed. Leave £10k in a bank for 10 years untouched and you might earn enough to compensate for inflation and a few hundred quid on top.
Yes, my point exactly. However try to take out a loan, and they will charge you a lot of interest. So between giving a bank my money for a pittance, and keeping it outside earning decent returns (around 10% so far, ignoring cryptocurrencies, which are more like gambling right now), I will keep as much of out outside of the bank.
> They are providing a service for that "free" interest, however - being able to access your money in any country, use it on any website, get it queried, refunded, etc. without any hassle. Something cash doesn't offer.
Actually, nowadays they want to charge you. I didn't realise people actually pay to have a credit card nowadays. My cards are grandfathered in due to having them so long, but if I want a new CC, they want me to pay (indeed a lot of current accounts want to charge me monthly now too).
And yes, there are benefits to using cards. I am not arguing against card based transactions (hell, it is the only way I buy stuff online). Just saying that I don't believe a cash-free future is on the horizon. Most likely we will continue to have both side by side.
> Banks are not the only places to offer cards. Pre-pay cards exist, for example, and even debit cards for children (my 9-year-old has a Visa card, to teach her how to handle money... it's an official card from a company called GoHenry, it has her name on it and everything. But her spending is strictly monitored and controlled and she can never get into debt). I distrust banks too, and literally have never even looked at using them beyond being a storage of funds, paying them nothing to do so.
Yes, but still have the security and tracking issues. Admittedly I had one of those accounts as a child. HSBC (or Midland Bank as it was then) offered them and my parents took it for me. I agree, it taught me a lot, even if I never actually used the card (still have it, pristine and unsigned, in my accounts folder).
> I can. Zero. I've literally never had a card refused or not work (if the hardware is clearly operational - worst case is "Could you come over to this till, please?"). Hell, I went to an antiques market full of old fogies selling tat on rickety tables in an old community hall, and they all have Zettle.
Well, not my experience. I can (and have) had cards rejected multiple times a month. Can't tell you how embarrassing it is going out on a date and having your card refused by the restaurant, or holding up the line at the supermarket trying repeatedly to pay for something, and being rejected multiple times.. Thankfully with cash I know it will be accepted, no matter what.
> Never had that happen. But, to be honest, I would never try to fill up a car on NYE. And the solution is simple "I only have a card and you have no way to take that... Okay, sir, can you just fill out this form". I've done it before with friends when they realised they didn't have any money. Any large chain gives you a form, checks some ID, and gives you something like a week to pay and then charges you £10 on top if you don't.
Yes, I made that mistake, however if I had cash, I could fill up whenever I wanted as long as the station was open, I would not have to work on the banks time, I have access to my money, on hand, whenever I want. Now, I can pay whenever I want, even on NYE, or if the systems are down (like with that outage a few months ago, was it Natwest?).
Yes, after 2 hours there, they realised the system wasn't coming back soon, and let me go, after taking my driving licence and my promise to come back tomorrow to settle the bill. Still, a very uncomfortable situation, and ruined my NYE. Petrol stations are far more strict, because people filling up and then driving off is a big problem, so they don't really believe you "will come back later". So, now with cash, I don't have to worry about that, which is one less thing to worry about.
> This isn't a case for "never use a card". It's a case of "what do those shops do when their system is down". They are just as likely to not be able to operate the pumps or ring up your goods at all, to be honest.
I have never had that happen. Unless there is a power cut (which doesn't happen in London often), they can ring up the till and process my payment with cash just fine. Likewise the petrol station worked fine, apart from no card based transactions.
> Not really. It's quite common. Go stand by any Tube station and watch as people get the coffee and paper with a card, tag onto the Oyster reader to pay for their journey, go for lunch on card, pay all their bills by DD, etc.
To be fair "TFL travelers" are a monoculture. In that tightly controlled and monitored system, where there is really only one choice (and people are conditioned to use contactless) you don't offer alternatives, so all the people will use the most convenient (or only) option available to them.
Compare it to the countryside in the UK, or even parts of London outside of the commuter/underground system, and you will find cash is still king (hell, where I lived, many places were "cash only", refused all cards and contactless).
> It doesn't need to be. It's millions of people, some portion of whom would be able to live cash-free today which they couldn't do 10 years ago. That portion was smaller 10 years ago, bigger now, will be bigger still in 10 years. At the point that having to put coin/note readers into every device (and updating them every time they change the pound coins!) becomes less than just sticking in a card reader / RFID reader, fewer places will start handling cash. Hell, even banking cash is a risk where people still have to don riot-helmets and lockboxes to take their earnings to the bank.
There is a right tool for the job. I am not arguing for a cash only world, just that a "cash only world" is just as unlikely as a "cashless world", despite governments pushing really really hard for it.
> It's not about when PEOPLE change. It's about when BUSINESS changes. And business has no reason to not use cards over cash. In fact, the only reason they have at the moment is customer-request. As that dies off, it very, very quickly becomes a business expense to handle cash that you can eliminate by one simple sign: Cards only. People complain that they don't have a card? Well, sir, over here we have our loyalty credit card and/or pre-paid cards you can use in-store. We'll take cash at that one till, for the next few years, until you learn that it's easier for everyone to use cards.
Well, seeing as many business still offer me a "cash discount" when I don't pay by card, seems they still have an incentive over cards. I suspect it is to do with card transaction costs (which are borne by the traders), along with less overhead for processing. I am happy to get a discount in return for using an anonymous, simple and direct system of value exchange. Others who are willing to pay more for the "convenience" of cards are also welcome, I have no problem people using whichever system they want.
That, along with a large number of people I encounter preferring cash over cards, means that customer requests "dying off" is not going to happen anytime soon. Perhaps it is the different social circles I live in/encounter to you, but it goes to show that there are whole groups of people who do not live, work or handle money like you do.
The only way cashless societies can happen if they are forced upon unwilling people, which I don't doubt the government will try to do. The ability to tax, monitor, control and deny anybody their wealth is an immense power over those people, and governments love power.
And quite frankly, I don't care how easy cards are to use, they are still a bad idea. There are more important things than convenience and ease of use.
> Go through London, and you no longer ever have to ask "Do you take cards?". I used to have to ask all the time.
Fair enough, I never had to ask if they took cards, primarily because those who were "cash only" had it displayed clearly on their tills, so you knew when you entered what to expect. The one time it was "card only" they didn't advertise it anywhere, otherwise would not have wasted time picking out my beer there.
I never knew a time when you had to ask if someone took cards, it is pretty much a given people accept both, or just cash.